{"author_name":"zatyka","cat":"LD #25","comments":[],"epoch":1356186300,"likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"47392","p_author":"zatyka","p_authorkey":"14357","p_urlkey":"83055","p_title":"The Best of Me \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #25","p_event":"LD25","p_time":"1356186300","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"14357","us_name":"zatyka","us_username":"zatyka","event_start":"1355443200","event_key":"14","event_name":"LD25"},"text":"<p>I&#8217;ve been a big fan of Ludum Dare for a few years, but this is only my 2nd time entering.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s what I ended up with:<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/12\/22\/the-best-of-me-post-mortem\/screen-115\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-217424\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-217424 aligncenter\" alt=\"screen\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/screen15-300x206.jpg\" width=\"416\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/screen15-300x206.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/screen15.jpg 798w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 416px) 100vw, 416px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"The Best of Me\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-25\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14357\" target=\"_blank\">Play\/Rate it<\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>What went right:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>The Tool<\/strong> &#8211; I used Construct2, just like my first entry.\u00a0 Both times, I considered using GameMaker\/GML, but I wanted an easy way to post to the web, and more so, Construct2 lets you rapidly produce something that&#8217;s playable.<\/li>\n <li><strong>The Story<\/strong> &#8211; I thought the &#8220;you are the villain&#8221; theme could really make an interesting story arc in the game.\u00a0 I spent a good amount of time the first day just thinking of how to implement the theme into the story.\u00a0 I&#8217;m happy with how it turned out.<\/li>\n <li><strong>The Music<\/strong> &#8211; With only about 45 minutes left, I finally turned my attention to sounds\/music.\u00a0 There wasn&#8217;t enough time for me to create anything that wouldn&#8217;t have been boring or repetitive, so I turned to the Wolfram Tones to generate some background music for me.\u00a0 Out of the 60 or so tracks I listened to, I had found 3 that I thought would add to the ambiance of the game.<\/li>\n <li><strong>The Gameplay<\/strong> &#8211; It ended up being a simplified zelda dungeon.\u00a0 You acquire 4 powers along the way, and use them to open doors to get farther into the dungeon.\u00a0 The powers were fun to create, and worked reasonably well.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there were also a number of problems with the gameplay (see what went wrong).<\/li>\n <li><strong>The game felt complete<\/strong> &#8211; By &#8220;complete&#8221;, I\u00a0 mean there is a definitive beginning and end, assuming you could make it to the end (see &#8220;bugs&#8221;).<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>What went wrong:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>I tried to do WAY too much<\/strong> &#8211; I chose a relatively complex game to make in 48 hours.\u00a0 A number of\u00a0 gameplay aspects suffered to have something complete by the deadline.\u00a0 Also, virtually nothing felt polished, and there are a number of bugs.\u00a0 Fortunately, there was only 1 bug that stopped the player from finishing the game, and that&#8217;s been fixed.<\/li>\n <li><strong>The text speed<\/strong> &#8211; There are a few &#8220;cut scenes&#8221; in the game where all controls are suspended to show dialog important to the controls or story.\u00a0 This wouldn&#8217;t be so bad, but I made this dialog unskippable, which left the player frustrated, having to wait for the dialog to finish before they could resume playing.\u00a0 I had planned to add the ability to move through the dialog via a keyboard button, but ran out of time.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Lack of planning<\/strong> &#8211; I had a conceptual idea, and just went with it, making many things up as I went along.\u00a0 This ended up being a very poor choice.\u00a0 If I had planned things out a bit more in the beginning, I would have had more time in the end to polish the game.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>For next time:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Plan as much as possible before creating.<\/li>\n <li>Start with a simple gameplay mechanic, and expand if there is time.<\/li>\n <li>Wrap it up with a definitive beginning and end.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>See you all in LD26.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"December 22nd, 2012 9:25 am","title":"The Best of Me \u2013 Post Mortem"}